Catholics consider a magic answer to two big problems.
Tens of millions of people are too crippled by student loans to begin families. Catholics wonder: Why not just pay off all the crushing burden of 1.3 trillion dollars in student loans? Generations of college graduates could be feed from staggering debt. Tens of millions could have joyful, productive lives.
Where would the money come from? Ending the Wars on Drugs. We could stop pretending that the staggering costs of crime, enforcement, and incarceration are helping us.
We spend about a hundred billion dollars a year on The War on Drugs. We are losing!
A hundred years ago, cocaine, opium, heroin, and other drugs could be freely purchased at the drugstore.
Then, there was little crime. We may consider the unthinkable: Legalize all drugs! Let all people be free to go to the drugstore. Let them buy whatever they want.
Almost all crime is drug-related. If addicts could buy drugs cheaply, they would not have to steal a thousand dollars to support a hundred-dollar a day habit! They would not be pushing drugs on their friends to get the money to support their habits.
Present crime, and future addiction, would be reduced. We would stop spending a hundred billion dollars a year in law enforcement, judicial, and jail costs.
We would not be endlessly mugged and robbed. Insurance costs would drop. Addicts would not be killed by the deadly impurities in black-market narcotics.
In a little over a decade, enough money would be saved to pay off the 1.3 trillion dollars in student loans. Young people could afford to have families. Our nation would no longer be ravaged by the costs of fighting addiction and putting more people in jail.
Legalize drugs, pay off all student loans with the money saved, and let people be free? Is that a bad idea?
Catholics consider a magic answer to two big problems.
